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<h1> PATHFINDERS OF <br/> THE GREAT PLAINS </h1>
<br/>
<h2> A Chronicle of La Verendrye and his Sons </h2>
<h3> BY </h3>
<h2> LAWRENCE J. BURPEE </h2>
<br/><br/><br/>
<h3> TORONTO <br/> GLASGOW, BROOK & COMPANY <br/> 1914 </h3>
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La Verendrye Explorations, 1731-43
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<h3> CHAPTER I </h3>
<h4>
EARLY SERVICE
</h4>
<p>Canada has had many brave sons, but none braver than Pierre Gaultier de
La Verendrye, who gave all that he had, including his life, for the
glory and welfare of his country. La Verendrye was born in the quaint
little town of Three Rivers, on the St Lawrence, on November 17, 1685.
His father was governor of the district of which Three Rivers was the
capital; his mother was a daughter of Pierre Boucher, a former governor
of the same district. In those days, when Canada was still a French
colony, both Three Rivers and Montreal had their own governors, while
the whole colony was under the authority of the governor-general, who
lived at Quebec.</p>
<p>At that time Three Rivers was a more important place than it is to-day.
Next to Quebec and Montreal, it was the largest town in Canada. If we
could see it as it was in the days of La Verendrye, we should find it
very
different from the towns we know. It was surrounded by a
strong wall and protected with cannon. The town had always a garrison
of regular soldiers, and this garrison was supported in times of
necessity by every man and boy in Three Rivers. Those who lived in the
neighbourhood were also liable to be called upon for the service of
defence. In those days, when the dreaded Iroquois might at any moment
swoop down upon the little settlement, every man kept his gun within
reach, and every man knew how to use it. When the alarm was given,
men, women, and children swarmed into Three Rivers, and the town became
a secure fortress; for the Indians, ready enough to ambush small
parties of white men in the forest or in the fields, rarely dared to
attack walled towns.</p>
<p>In this little walled town Pierre Gaultier de La Verendrye was born,
and spent his boyhood. He was one of ten children, so that he must
have had no lack of companions. We have no exact description of the
home of the governor of Three Rivers, but it was probably much like
that of other seigneurs or landed gentry of New France—a low,
rambling, stone building, with walls solid enough to resist a siege,
perhaps a wing or two, many
gables, and a lofty roof. It would be
flanked, too, with many outhouses. It must not be supposed, however,
that the governor of Three Rivers and his family lived in luxury.
People then were obliged to live more simply than they live to-day.
The governor had a salary of 1200 francs a year, or about 240 dollars
of the money of the present day. At that time, it is true, food and
clothing were cheaper than they are now, so that this sum would buy a
great deal more than it would at the present time; and the governor had
other slight resources, for he was able to add to his official income
the profits of a small farm and of a trading post on the St Maurice
river. Still, it was a small income on which to support a family of
ten lusty children, and at the same time keep up the dignity of the
position as governor of an important town. Pierre, therefore, like
most of the other boys of New France, had to shift for himself at an
age when the boys of to-day are still at school.</p>
<p>In those days there was practically only one career for a gentleman's
son—that of a soldier. Accordingly we find Pierre entering the army
as a cadet at the age of twelve. Nothing is known of his military
service up to the year 1704. In that year, however, he took part in
an expedition against Deerfield, on the north-western frontier of
the colony of Massachusetts. The expedition was commanded by a
well-known guerilla leader, Hertel de Rouville, and consisted of about
fifty Canadians and two hundred Abnakis and Caughnawagas. These
adventurers and redskins were accustomed to all kinds of hardship. In
the depth of winter they set out from Montreal to make a journey of
nearly three hundred miles. They travelled on snow-shoes through the
forest, carrying supplies and provisions on their backs. At the end of
a long day's tramp, some comparatively sheltered spot would be found
for the camp; the snow would be cleared away with their snowshoes, and
a big camp-fire built in the midst of the clearing. Round this the
weary men, white and red, would gather to eat their simple meal and
smoke a pipe; then each man would wrap himself in his cloak or blanket
and fall asleep, with his feet towards the fire. From time to time
some one, warned by the increasing cold, would spring up to throw on
the fire another log or two. With the first appearance of dawn, the
party would be once more astir; a hasty breakfast would be swallowed,
and they would be off again on their long tramp to the south.</p>
<p>So day after day they journeyed until at last, just when they had come
to the very end of their provisions, they arrived within sight of the
doomed little English frontier village of Deerfield. In the dead of
the night Rouville called a halt in a pine forest two miles from the
village, and made preparations to surprise the inhabitants. The people
of Deerfield were wholly unconscious of the danger from the approach of
the French raiders. Although the place had a rude garrison this force
was ineffective, since it had little or no discipline. On this
particular night even the sentries seem to have found their patrol duty
within the palisades of the village so uncomfortable, in the bitter
night air, that they had betaken themselves to bed.</p>
<p>Parkman has described the next step:</p>
<br/>
<p class="block">
Rouville and his men, savage with hunger, lay shivering under the pines
till about two hours before dawn; then, leaving their packs and their
snow-shoes behind, they moved cautiously towards their prey. There was
a crust on the snow strong enough to bear their weight, though not to
prevent a rustling noise, as it crunched under the weight of so many
men. It is said that from time to time Rouville commanded a halt, in
order
that the sentinels, if such there were, might mistake the
distant sound for rising and falling gusts of wind. In any case, no
alarm was given till they had mounted the palisade and dropped silently
into the unconscious village. Then with one accord they screeched the
war-whoop, and assailed the doors of the houses with axes and hatchets.</p>
<br/>
<p>The surprised villagers, awakened out of their sleep to find a howling
force of French and Indians in their midst, hastily barricaded their
doors, and fought desperately with any weapons they could snatch up.
In some cases the defenders succeeded in keeping the enemy at bay; but
others were not so successful. The French and the Indians, hacked
openings in the doors and the windows of some of the houses, and
through these shot down the inmates. Finally, when day broke, the
French had gained possession of most of the village. Then they
collected their prisoners and drove them out to their camp in the
forest. A few burned houses, a score or so of dead bodies, not only of
men but of helpless women and children, and a crowd of shivering
prisoners, some of whom were butchered by the way, were the evidences
of this inglorious victory.</p>
<p>From the plunder of the houses the victors obtained some provisions
which helped to feed their party on the long homeward journey. Before
noon of the following day they had started northward again, driving
their captives before them through the deep snow. The mid-winter tramp
through the wilderness proved extremely trying to both the French and
their prisoners, but particularly to the prisoners, among whom were
many women and children. Many of them were unaccustomed to snowshoes.
Yet now they had to make long forced marches in this way over the deep
snow. Food, too, was scarce. Some of the prisoners died of
starvation; others of exhaustion. Finally the remnant reached the
French settlements on the St Lawrence, where they were kindly treated
by the inhabitants. Some were afterwards exchanged for French captives
in New England, but many never again saw their former homes.</p>
<p>The year after his return from the expedition to Deerfield, Pierre de
La Verendrye took part in another raid against the English settlements.
On this occasion, however, the attack was not upon a New England
village, but against the town of St John's, in Newfoundland. The
expedition was commanded
by an officer named Subercase, who
afterwards became governor of Acadia. St John's was defended by two
forts, with small English garrisons. The French, who had about four
hundred and fifty soldiers, found themselves unable to capture the
forts. They therefore abandoned the attack on St John's and returned
to the French settlement of Placentia, burning, as they went, a number
of English fishing villages along the shore.</p>
<p>This kind of warfare could not bring much honour to a young soldier,
and it was probably joyful news to Pierre to learn that he had been
appointed an ensign in the Bretagne regiment of the Grenadiers serving
in Flanders. He sailed from Canada in 1706, and for three years fought
with his regiment in what was known as the War of the Spanish
Succession, in which the English armies were commanded by the famous
Duke of Marlborough. Finally, at the terrible battle of Malplaquet, in
which thousands of both English and French were killed, Pierre so
distinguished himself that he won the rank of lieutenant. He received
no less than nine wounds, and was left for dead upon the field.
Fortunately he managed to escape, to render to his country in the years
to come much greater service.</p>
<p>Finding that there was little hope of further promotion in the French
army, since he had no influence in high quarters, Pierre returned to
Canada. After several years' service in the colonial forces, he
abandoned the army, and engaged in the fur trade. As a boy at Three
Rivers, he had enjoyed many chances of meeting the fur-traders who came
down to the little town on the St Lawrence with their packs of valuable
peltry, and had shown an especial and fascinated interest in their
stories of the boundless country that lay north and west of the string
of settlements on the St Lawrence. This country was so vast in extent
that even the most remote tribes yet visited by the white traders could
state nothing definite as to its outer boundaries, though, in answer to
the eager questions of the white men, they invented many untrue tales
about it.</p>
<p>The fur-traders themselves were divided into two classes. The more
staid and respectable class built trading forts in the interior on the
borders of territories occupied by the Indians. Here they kept a
supply of the things required by the natives: guns, powder and balls,
tobacco, blankets, bright-coloured cotton, axes and small tools, flints
and steels, vermilion for war-paint, and beads of every colour and
description. The Indians brought their furs into the forts and
bartered them for the goods that they needed. Sometimes, with no sense
of real values, they traded beaver skins and other pelts of high worth
for a piece of gaudy cotton, a little vermilion, or a handful of beads.
The white men, of course, brought things which rapidly became
indispensable to the Indians, whose native bows and arrows and hatchets
of stone seemed almost useless compared with the muskets and the steel
axes brought from Europe. To acquire these things became vital to the
Indians, and the traders who now supplied them acquired each year
thousands of beautiful furs. These were tied up securely into packs
and carried in canoes down to Montreal or Three Rivers, where they were
bought by the great merchants and sent by ship to France. The furs
that had been bought from the Indian for a mere trifle fetched hundreds
of francs when they finally reached Paris.</p>
<p>The second class of traders, known as coureurs de bois, or
wood-runners, were very different from the first. Speaking generally,
they were young men, sometimes of good family, who found life in the
older towns and settlements prosaic and uninteresting, and when
they went to the interior did not care to be tied down to the humdrum
existence of the trading forts. Instead of requiring the Indians to
bring their furs down to some fort, these enterprising rovers of the
forest went into the Indian country. Sometimes they took light trading
goods with them to barter with the redskins for furs, but oftener they
themselves hunted and trapped the beaver, the otter, and the fox. The
coureurs de bois were generally men of reckless courage, ready to face
danger and hardship. From long living among the savages they
themselves became in time half savage. Some of them took Indian wives
and were adopted into the tribes.</p>
<p>When one of these wood-runners had obtained a quantity of furs, he made
them up into packs, loaded them carefully in his canoe, and set out for
the distant settlements, Montreal, Three Rivers, or Quebec. He knew
the wild northern streams as well as any Indian; he could run his canoe
safely down a rapid where an inch one way or the other would dash it
against the rocks; and he could paddle all day with only an occasional
stop for a meal or a smoke. When he came to an impassable rapid or
waterfall, he beached his canoe and carried everything—canoe, packs,
gun, and
provisions—overland to the navigable water ahead. At
night he pulled his canoe ashore, built a campfire, and cooked over the
flames a partridge, a wild duck, or a venison steak. If he had not
been fortunate enough to meet with such game, he made a simple meal of
pemmican—dried venison mixed with fat—a supply of which he always
carried in a bag in case of need. Then he smoked his pipe, rolled
himself in his blanket, placed his gun within reach, and slept soundly
until the sun awakened him on the following morning. When he reached
the far-off towns on the St Lawrence, he traded part of his furs for
any goods which he needed, and was only too likely to get rid of the
rest in dissipation. As soon as his money was spent, he would turn his
back on civilization and live once more the wild life of the Indian
country.</p>
<p>From such men as these, who were constantly to be seen in the little
town of Three Rivers, Pierre de La Verendrye heard many stories of the
wonderful country that lay far towards the setting sun. They told him
of mighty rivers and great lakes. Some of these they had seen; others
they had heard of from the Indians. Always the young man heard rumours
of a great <i>Mer de l'Ouest</i>, or Western
Sea, which French
explorers had been seeking ardently ever since the days of Jacques
Cartier and Samuel Champlain. In the earlier days, when the French
first came to Canada, this Western Sea was supposed to be somewhere
above Montreal. Probably the Indians who first spoke of it to Jacques
Cartier meant nothing more than Lake Ontario. Then, in the days of
Champlain, the sea was sought farther westward. Champlain heard
rumours of a great water beyond the Ottawa river. He paddled up the
Ottawa, reached Lake Nipissing, and, descending what is now known as
French River, found the immense body of water of which the Indians had
told him. He had discovered Lake Huron, but this, again, was not the
Western Sea. Other explorers, following in his footsteps, discovered
Lake Michigan and Lake Superior; but still neither of these was the
Western Sea. So, in La Verendrye's day, men were dreaming of a Western
Sea somewhere beyond Lake Superior. How far was it westward of Lake
Superior? Who could tell? The Indians were always ready with a
plausible tale, and many believed that the Western Sea would still be
found at no great distance beyond the uppermost of the Great Lakes.</p>
<p>La Verendrye was a young man of ambition and imagination. The spirit
of adventure called him to a great exploit in discovery, as it had
called earlier explorers French in blood—Jacques Cartier and Champlain
and Radisson, Nicolet and Etienne Brul�, Marquette and La Salle. They
one and all had sought diligently for the Western Sea; they had made
many notable discoveries, but in this one thing they all had failed.
La Verendrye determined to strive even more earnestly than any of his
great predecessors to discover a way to the Western Sea, not so much
for his own advantage as for the honour and glory of his native
country. This great idea had been taking form in his mind from the
days of his early boyhood, when, seated before the great log fire in
his father's home in Three Rivers, he had first listened to the
stirring tales of the woodrunners.</p>
<p>Years went by, however, before he could attempt to put his plans into
execution. Soon after his return from the French wars, he married the
daughter of a gentleman of New France named Dandonneau and made his
home on the island of Dupas in the St Lawrence, near Three Rivers.
Here four sons were born to him, all of whom were
later to
accompany their father on his western explorations. His principal
occupation at this time was to look after the trading-post of La
Gabelle on the St Maurice river, not far from the point where it
discharges its waters into the St Lawrence.</p>
<p>La Verendrye's experience and capacity as a fur-trader, gained at this
post of La Gabelle, led the governor of the colony to offer him, in the
year 1726, the command of an important trading fort on Lake Nipigon,
north of Lake Superior. With his great project of western exploration
always in mind, he eagerly accepted the offer. For three or four years
he remained in command of the Nipigon post, faithfully discharging his
duties as a fur-trader, but with his mind always alert for any
information that might help him later to discover a way to the Western
Sea.</p>
<p>One day there came to him from the Kaministikwia river—on which the
city of Fort William now stands—an Indian named Ochagach. According
to his own story, Ochagach had travelled far towards the setting sun,
until he came to a great lake, out of which a river flowed westward.
He said that he had paddled down this river until he reached a point
where the water ebbed and flowed.
Through fear of the savage
tribes that inhabited the shores of the river, he had not gone to its
mouth, but he had been told that the river emptied into a great salt
lake or sea, upon the coasts of which dwelt men of terrifying mien, who
lived in fortified towns; he had been told that these men wore armour
and rode on horseback, and that great ships visited the towns which
they had built on the coasts.</p>
<p>Ochagach's story made a deep impression on La Verendrye. Not that he
accepted the whole account as true. He knew too well the wild
imagination of the Indian, and his delight in telling marvellous tales
to the white men. But the river that flowed westward and fell into a
great sea answered so closely to his own dream, and seemed on the whole
so probable, that he was persuaded of the truth of the story. He
determined, therefore, to surrender his command of the Nipigon post and
to equip an expedition for the discovery of the Western Sea, which now
seemed to be within comparatively easy reach. To do this, he must
obtain the permission and support of the governor-general of Canada,
the Marquis de Beauharnois. He therefore set out for Quebec, taking
with him a rough map which Ochagach had drawn for him. This map
professed to make clear the position of the countries which Ochagach
declared that he had visited.</p>
<p>The governor at Quebec was keenly interested in these plans for western
discovery, and wrote immediately to the French king, urging that La
Verendrye should be provided with one hundred men and the necessary
supplies and equipment. But King Louis at this time was deeply engaged
in European wars and intrigues and could not spare any money for the
work of exploration. All that he would grant was a monopoly of the
western fur trade. That is to say, La Verendrye was to be allowed to
build trading forts in the country which he was about to explore, and,
out of the profits of his traffic with the Indians, he might pay the
cost of his expedition to the Western Sea. No other French traders
would be permitted to trade in this part of the country.</p>
<p>This was sorry encouragement to a man whose only desire was to bring
glory and honour to his native country; but it was all that could be
hoped for from the government or the king. La Verendrye was too true a
leader to abandon plans merely because the road was not made easy for
him. As the king would not pay the cost of his expedition, he
made up his mind to find help from some other source. He must have
men; he must have canoes, provisions, and goods to trade with the
natives. All this demanded a great deal of money. He devoted at once
to the cause his own little fortune, but this was far from sufficient.
Off he went to Montreal, to plead with its merchants to help him. The
merchants, however, were not much interested in his plans for western
discovery. They were business men without patriotism; they looked for
something that would bring profit, not for what might advance the
interests of their country.</p>
<p>It thus happened that if La Verendrye had had nothing to offer them but
the opportunity of sharing in the distinction of his great discovery,
they would have turned deaf ears to his appeal, no matter how eloquent
he might have been. But he was too shrewd a man to urge plans to which
he knew the merchants would not listen. He could turn the king's
monopoly to good account. 'Give me money to pay my men,' he said, 'and
goods to trade with the western tribes, and I will bring you rich
returns in beaver skins. No other traders are permitted to go into the
country west of Lake Superior. I will build trading forts
there.
From these as a base I will continue my search for the Western Sea.
All the profits of the enterprise, the rich furs that are brought into
my posts, shall be yours.' Here was something that the self-seeking
merchants could understand. They saw in the fur-trading monopoly a
chance of a golden harvest, a return of hundreds for every franc that
they advanced towards the expenses of the undertaking. With cheerful
haste, therefore, they agreed to pay the cost of the expedition. La
Verendrye was delighted and lost no time in employing such persons as
he needed—soldiers, canoe-men, and hunters. Birch-bark canoes were
procured and laden with provisions, equipment, and packages of goods to
trade with the Indians; and in the early summer of 1731 all was ready
for the great western journey. With La Verendrye were to go three of</p>
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